The Kansas City Star, Sept. 22
St. Teresa’s students who posed with swastika made of beer pong cups need an education
Where to begin with the St. Teresa’s Academy students only lightly punished by the school after posing for party pics with the swastika they’d fashioned with beer pong cups?
In the day, younger sisters, some of us would have been expelled from our Catholic schools for the cups alone.
This incident is not innocuous, and the day of “reflection” imposed on those involved strikes us as absurdly light duty for having mistaken a symbol of hate for a decorative way to act out.
Reports of suspensions from the private Catholic school for such lesser crimes as calling a fellow student a “snake” and going off-campus for lunch have understandably made some St. Teresa students suspect that this incident has not been punished as severely as it should have been because, according to fundraising reports, at least two of the students involved come from families who are generous donors.
The school’s president, Nan Bone, and principal of student affairs, Liz Baker, denied any such link in an email to The Star editorial board.
They also denied multiple student reports that a teacher who tried to talk to students about the incident has been disciplined.
They insisted that a student suspected of showing photographic evidence of the incident to school officials has not been harassed or repeatedly told “Snitches get stitches” both online and in person.
And they also disputed a student’s report that Baker told a group of juniors upset by the incident to “stop trying to get your pound of flesh.”
(“The four statements you provided are unequivocally not true,” Bone said in an email, without any further elaboration. Baker’s email was even shorter: “I concur with Ms. Bone,” she wrote.)
Well, we hope that’s right.
For one thing, if Baker had cited a “pound of flesh,” it would not only have been wrong-headed, but a really unfortunate choice of words, referring as it does to one of the most anti-Semitic characters in all of literature. The abused and abusive Jewish money-lender Shylock in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” demands to be paid a literal “pound of flesh” by a debtor who can’t pay. He’s tricked out of it, though, and the play’s happy ending includes Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity.
Back to the girls so ill-served by the leniency of their administrators: The fact that they shaped the hateful symbol backwards argues that they don’t know much about Nazis.
But that’s part of the problem, and they have shamed themselves and their school by showing a complete lack of understanding for the history of the Holocaust, and of the history between Jews and Catholics.
A corrective reading assignment might begin with Pope John Paul II’s “We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah,” the 1998 document in which John Paul apologized to Jews on behalf of the church, expressing “deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age.”
We’d also love to see those involved spend some time with Sonia Warshawski, the 91-year-old Kansas City Holocaust survivor who was dragged out of her hiding place under some floorboards in her attic in the Miedzyrzec ghetto at age 13, forced to shovel the remains of her people for use as fertilizer at Bergen-Belsen and shot in the chest as the camp was being liberated.
Maybe the students could explain to her what they thought was so funny about their beer cup art project, and she could tell them why it wasn’t.
A number of alumnae, some of whom have threatened never to write the school another check, remain furious over the way the incident was handled.
And in response, on Friday afternoon, the school released a new statement that said, in part, “This incident was irregular; it was something we have never faced before and it has shaken us to our core … Many of you have questioned the consequences and called for expulsion of the students involved. While we respect your opinion, expulsion is the wrong solution in this situation. We live the mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph … In the weeks ahead, we will be announcing several new initiatives addressing issues this incident has brought to light.”
St. Teresa’s alum Annalisa Zapien-Pina Young scoffed at that response: “I think they’re closing ranks, but that’s not going to work. It’s OK to be a bigot and not look at what happens when you don’t confront something like this? I love St. Teresa’s, but I went there when it was run by nuns, and they taught us values - core values - that if this is representative have been lost, and that’s why the alumnae are so incensed.”
We, too, would love to see the school’s current administrators live up to the mission of the sisters they only seem to be hiding behind.
_____
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 24
Whatever happened to the national emergency on opioid abuse?
There are 29 active national emergencies in place today in the United States. The latest is the one that President Donald Trump declared on Aug. 10: “The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I am saying, officially, right now, it is an emergency. It’s a national emergency. We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis. It is a serious problem the likes of which we have never had.”
In spite of Trump’s penchant for hyperbole, this declaration was a wise decision and came in response to draft recommendations of a presidential commission Trump appointed last spring. Unfortunately, it’s been six weeks since the emergency was declared, and the only step the administration has taken is to form a public-private partnership on the issue with some of the drug companies that have profited mightily from the addiction crisis.
At least 21,000 overdose deaths were attributed to opioids last year. An additional 30,000 overdose deaths are attributed to heroin and powerful synthetic opioids. Feuds among drug dealers are contributing to higher homicide rates in St. Louis and elsewhere. So yes, it’s a national emergency. And America needs to act like it.
In Trump’s defense, he’s had more immediate emergencies from hurricanes to deal with in the past six weeks, both of them drawing down funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If the opioid crisis were treated as a real national emergency, FEMA would have statutory authority for dealing with it - though its expertise in drug abuse is negligible. Congress had natural disasters in mind when it passed the 1988 Stafford Act to govern federal emergency response.
In fact, most of the other 28 national emergencies still on the books impose economic sanctions against individuals doing business with governments we don’t like or terrorist organizations. The oldest dates from 1979 and blocks Iranian government property. A president can invoke the National Emergencies Act of 1974 and claim certain statutory powers to deal with the crisis of the moment.
In the case of the opioids emergency, the presidential commission, chaired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, urged Trump to “force Congress to focus on funding.”
The commission endorsed “the gold standard” of making medication-assisted treatment freely available. Experience has shown that by substituting less addictive drugs for opium-derived painkillers or heroin, addicts have a far better chance of recovery.
But such treatment is both expensive and controversial. Tens of billions of dollars would be required, as well as a recognition that addicts do better in treatment centers than prison.
The Senate had $45 billion for opioid treatment in its first Obamacare replacement bill. It has zero in the health care bill it’s considering now. Real national emergencies require real national leaders.
_____
The Springfield News-Leader, Sept. 18
Greitens must answer on education board moves
Missouri is at a crucial point in the examination and experimentation of how we educate young people.
Questions must be answered about how public and private schools operate, what role choice plays and how public money is disbursed.
Much of those answers will be made at the state level, where legislation swims through Jefferson City, debated by lawmakers and others on party lines.
Apart from that is the State Board of Education, which is expected to be a nonpartisan entity focused on creating the best policies for Missouri schools.
To carry out its mission, the board should be comprised of people with different views, including opinions about school choice.
There is growing concern from public educators that the balance is shifting, and too great an influence is being given to proponents of private and charter schools and that the role of public schools is being downplayed.
There certainly should be voices for those in favor of offering more choice. Innovation in education might require more resources being diverted to private schools. However, we must make sure that there are still voices speaking out for the protection of public schools, so certain unintended consequences of choice don’t negatively impact students - particularly those from families with fewer resources.
This concern from educators has grown louder partly because of Gov. Eric Greitens’ odd action last week to rescind the appointment of Melissa Gelner to the Board of Education.
She had been working with the board since July, but hadn’t officially been confirmed yet. She told the News-Leader that her nomination was withdrawn Friday. Despite numerous attempts, the News-Leader has been unable to hear from the governor why Gelner was removed in favor of Heidi Crane.
Gelner has long been involved in Springfield-based programs that serve children, and was seen by colleagues - including the board member she was replacing, Peter Herschend - as a qualified and dedicated voice for Missouri students.
Gelner said she became frustrated working with the governor’s policy team and that she had been pressured “to make rash leadership decisions.”
We don’t know all Gelner’s views on education, as a former trustee of The Summit Preparatory School in Springfield, it’s unlikely she’s entirely opposed to school choice.
It’s also possible that Crane is a qualified member for the board.
Our concern with the change isn’t specifically about swapping Gelner for Crane. It’s that the governor seems to be going through great efforts to stack the deck and generally exert control over the Missouri Board of Education, and in this case, he is not explaining why he’s making this unusual decision.
During a meeting with the editorial board during his campaign, Gov. Greitens spent considerable time speaking about his ideas for improving education in Missouri, and we expect he will make some appointments of folks who tend to agree with some of his philosophy.
That’s not something we should allow from this, or any other, governor.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.